One of my favorite little islands…
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
Spray across the bow
Welcome to South Button. It’s an uninhabited islet in the Andaman Island chain. India has classified the waters around it as part of a quasi-Marine Protected Area.
The boat ride to South Button is pleasant for an hour-and-a-half, winding through calm mangrove seas. And then the last stretch in open ocean can be sickeningly choppy, taking as long as 90 minutes in heavy surf.
The islet, a knob of sheer rock jutting straight out of the sea beckons teasingly on approach. It is surrounded by sloping coral and usually makes for easy diving. Unfortunately in the last year, most of the shallower reef has bleached, likely a result of warming seas and climate change.
Tags: andaman and nicobar, conservation, divemaster training, india, ocean, photography, south button
The fish that helped Nemo?
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
What're you looking at shark bait?
I was at an aquarium ten days ago. As a divemaster and budding conservationist, I feel sad when I see animals in pens. At the same time, I recognize the greater good and love watching people — in particular small children — get excited by things they may never otherwise experience.
Which is why I got such a kick out of hearing a little girl at the aquarium describe a pennant coralfish, as “the fish that helped Nemo” to her mother.
Mom didn’t get it and gave her daughter a quizzical look; I kneeled down, tried not be creepy and engaged the six-year-old.
I explained that the fish in the tank were also called longfin bannerfish and rarely do you see them alone and sometimes they school by the dozens. Then I explained about scuba diving and how cool the ocean is.
Thankfully, Mom didn’t accuse me of trying to steal her daughter.
For the record, I believe Gill (of Pixar fame) technically was a moorish idol, a very similar looking fish.
Tags: andaman and nicobar, aquarium, conservation, divemaster training, india, longfin bannerfish, moorish idol, ocean, pennant coralfish, photography, scuba diving, south button, wildlife
Coral reef under threat
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
Sad reef
The dying Lighthouse reef of Havelock Island typifies shallow water reefs the world over. The ecosystem is collapsing.
So-called bleached coral looses its color as the symbiotic relationship with a protozoa fails. As the coral stop growing and eventually die, the myriad species that survive around them move or diminish. Frequently, it seems the corals are left to the whims of algae.
Scientists say coral bleaching is caused by a variety of factors stressing the coral (which are actually tiny creatures that build magnificent skeletons) and disrupting the symbiosis. Global warming, acidification, human waste, harmful fishing habits and more are all very real human impacts on these rain forests of the sea.
This underwater rainforest is all but gone
Tags: andaman and nicobar, conservation, coral, coral bleaching, divemaster training, environment, fish, global warming, havelock, india, lighthouse reef, reef, wildlife
Goodbye healthy reef
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
Deep blue Dixon's Pinnacle
About 100 feet beneath the ocean several miles off Havelock Island is a picture of what is fast disappearing: healthy reef.
Coral ecosystems — the rain forests of the ocean, as it were — are fading and collapsing in the face of global warming, coral bleaching, overfishing, agricultural runoff, human waste pollution, the list goes on.
We can congratulate ourselves for mucking about too much.
If you’re interested in knowing more, I encourage you to check out the research and conclusions from International Programme on the State of the Ocean.
I don’t mean to be preachy, but this particular slice of the environment is something I’m dedicating my life to. So, in my world view, it’s too damn important to not talk about.
More life than you can shake a stick at
Fish and more be everywhere
Tags: andaman and nicobar, conservation, coral, coral bleaching, divemaster training, dixon's pinnacle, environment, fish, global warming, india, ocean, photography, pollution, reef, scuba diving, state of the ocean, wildlife
Say hello to healthy reef
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
Johnny's Gorge
There’s not a lot left of it in the world. Coral reefs everywhere are dying. Indeed, according to the latest research from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean, the threats to coral reefs are actually amplifying each other and acting faster than previous scientific projections.
But in the Andaman Islands at sites below 20 meters or so (at least as of this winter) reefs had been spared severe devastation thanks to colder water.
Hence the living rainforest of the sea.
Tags: andaman and nicobar, conservation, fish, healthy reef, india, johnny's gorge, ocean, photography, reef, scuba diving
Illinois prairie of yesteryear
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under united states
All but gone
My bike rides routinely take me to Meadowbrook Park in Urbana, home to a decent swatch of prairie restoration. It’s small lake of the tall grasses, flowers and red-wing blackbirds that once formed an ocean as far as the eye could see across this state.
Today, we have settled the land, replacing the prairie with corn and our homesteads with neatly packed towns. Our yards are short grasses that we try our damndest to keep short.
In the process we’ve compromised our ecosystems, forcing us to rely more on biotech farming and synthetic fertilizer. We’ve watched nutrients be leeched from the soil or washed into our rivers. We’ve taken too much, in our quest to feed our cattle and our cars.
I vote for more returning to native plants, for more prairie restoration, for more preserving land for all creatures; Aldo Leopold saw the problems decades ago when he wrote about riding a bus across Illinois.
And so have countless of other scientists, conservationists, nature lovers and people lucky enough to experience the beauty of Illinois prairie that is now mostly confined to parks and the occasional highway embankment.
Tags: aldo leopold, biology, conservation, farming, illinois, photography, prairie, united states
Voices of Green India: Jayashree Joshi Eashwar
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
During May, I spent a couple weeks conducting interviews and producing short video testimonials for Greenpeace India. Hear now the stories of activism from a country struggling to protect its natural environment.
Tags: conservation, delhi, environment, greenpeace, india, multimedia, voices of green india
Voices of Green India: Jasbir Singh Chadda
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
During May, I spent a couple weeks conducting interviews and producing short video testimonials for Greenpeace India. Hear now the stories of activism from a country struggling to protect its natural environment.
Tags: conservation, delhi, environment, greenpeace, india, multimedia, voices of green india
One big trunk on the streets of Delhi
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
Meet a Delhi elephant. There are a few dozen of the beasts captive in Delhi, taken care of by their very loving mahouts (traditional, often tribal, elephant driver) as well as some wildlife NGOs. Their life isn’t great, but this is a facet of Indian culture that isn’t likely to wither under the animal-loving glare of the West.
Here, they are used for weddings, festivals and other ceremonies, though outside the city in parts of the country they are still beasts of burden. Sounds weird to say it, but these elephants are domesticated.
I’m sometimes a little leery of posting photos of the colorful juxtaposition of India’s traditions alongside her modern ambitions. What I don’t want is for this mediocre shot — from an abnormally uncrowded Aurobino Marg, a major Delhi traffic artery — to give the impression that India is simply a backward, funny land.
But this is also reality in a major Indian city, a glorious if also quirky reality. There aren’t many places in the world to find the urban elephant.
Tags: conservation, culture, delhi, elephant, india, mahout, photography, tradition, urban, wildlife
Remote islands, dive master training, I can’t ask for much more
Posted by Adam Jadhav | Filed under india
This will be my last post for several weeks. I’m powering down the blog temporarily, as today I head to India’s far-off Andaman and Nicobar Islands again for professional dive training there. I’ll be interning at a dive shop and completing the PADI Divemaster program during the next three weeks.
And, of course, I’m doing it where I started diving little more than a year ago.
Since I took my first breath of compressed air in December 2009, I’ve logged 95 dives across India, Thailand, the U.S. and Ecuador (both the coast the Galapagos Islands). I’ve posted numerous underwater photos on this blog. I’m a certified Rescue Diver with Deep Speciality. I have big dreams of diving the Maldives, Indonesia, the Read Sea, the U.K. coast, Vietnam and more.
This is more than just hardcore goofing off (though there’s that, too). As I prepare for graduate studies in international environmental policy and/or development this fall, I’m intentionally adding divemaster training to my educational background. The goal will be to use my love of diving at least some once I return to work, ideally as a researcher/advisor/documentarian focused on conservation, sustainable resource management and economic development.
But since the Andamans (specifically Havelock Island where I’ll be camped in a bamboo hut) aren’t exactly close to anywhere — and since I’ll be working full-time during the day and frequently studying at night — I will likely see little of the Internet. As such, I will halt updates to the blog until I return to Delhi on 8 February.
Of course, when I’m back, there will be plenty of new underwater photos — and possible HD video — as I’ve got a new underwater camera and housing.
Hallelujah for the good times ahead. More when I get back safely.
Tags: andaman and nicobar, conservation, divemaster training, havelock, india, ocean, padi, scuba diving
